And there were red geraniums everywhere: Women’s voices of the Italian diaspora in North America

Ethnic literature has, at times, relied on rhetoric imbued with folklore, grandmothers, recipes, and prejudices. That’s not the case here. While grandmothers, recipes, and prejudices appear, we believe the reader will have no doubts about the honesty of these texts. The pain of recalling the immigration experience, the nostalgia, the arduous recovery of roots, the scents, the music, and the irony are always authentic, fresh, and vibrant. The grandmothers are not mere postcard figures but courageous women. The food does not evoke fleeting memories or choreographed nostalgia but instead carries a powerfully Proustian weight. Prejudice is not portrayed to elicit cheap indignation or emotion but to shape and convey deep pain.